My Life In Music: 2000 - 2007

And so we come to the end of the trawl through the wreckage of my life in music, where I have revealed that I have very little taste and what taste I do have is terrible. We've had crusty, indie, gay pop, and, according to some people (well, Rol) an unnatural liking for New Order.

And here we are, a new millennium. I'm living the student life in Sheffield, and the Y2K bug is scaring people. Will planes drop out of the sky? Will all our computerised systems crash at midnight 31st December 1999 as the chimes of Big Ben finish? Will I lose all my essays on the structure of gender in some daft film by some stroppy young maverick? Will I get some to see in the new year, or will everything just carry on as normal answering a big no to all these questions? Lets find out...

2000: Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia - Dandy Warhols

It should have been The Magic Treehouse by Ooberman as I listened to the tape of that for most of the year, but that had been released the previous year, and as ever I was slightly late getting into something I loved. However when I got into them I hit the Warhols with a passion. I loved the second album, and this their third made me love them even more. A year later I would be in a dank cellar dressing room interviewing them while the Courtney Taylor scratched his balls all way through. This had only two singles on it, including their multi-ad featured Bohemian Like You, but also has the much better Get Off on it. Resentful at times and at others gloriously up beat.

In the spring I get elected to run the Student Union magazine. Apparently it's a part time job with a bit of extra meeting time. However I also end up designing and writing a lot of it so I spend the summer of 2000 in a windowless office in the middle of Sheffield city centre. I also start to gig massively for free, including at one point doing three gigs in one night at different venues. All for my art. I'm a martyr. I'm doing the best part of sixty hours a week in various jobs and 8 at uni. No wonder I fail my video production unit with a record 3% and spend a week redoing everything and resitting an exam. Through the mode of doing as little as necessary to scrape through I pass half my year. I really should have put the effort in.

2001: Gorillaz - Gorillaz

I had loved Blur, and I was a massive Jamie Hewlett fan. Combine them and I was in heaven. This was the first time in years I got really excited about multi media stuff, where imagery and music were as important as each other and I fell hook line and sinker. I wanted more Blur, I wanted more Modern Life Is Rubbish and Great Escape era Blur. I wasn't going to get it and I was happy because of the glory of Gorrillaz.

I meet Mo Mowlam and she gives me cheese and branston sandwiches. I end up with pickle down my tie. She was great, funny and sincere. I miss her.

2002: The Beginning Stages of the Polyphonic Spree - Polyphonic Spree

Once in a while something so different comes along and you just have to watch, like rubbernecking at a car wreck. The Spree were one of those acts. I saw them about three times in a month and each time I was embroiled in a show. How the hell they managed it I don't know, but the almost cult like sway of Tim De Laughter and co grabbed me. The album is a whole broken down into bits, the tracks are labelled as sections and is a big uplifting pop call for positivity and revelling in the glory of life, and I revelled.

Uni ends, I finish with a 3rd as I had been downgraded. My work on the magazine is awarded with Guardian Media Award nominations, but we lose out to Nottingham all the time. I meet June Sarpong and ask her how she became successful when she is annoying and talentless. I also meet Charles Kennedy and think he's actually very funny.

2003: Elephant - The White Stripes

Dur Du Du Du Du Dur Dur. That bassline on the opening track 7 Nation Army got me hooked. I wasn't really a fan, but Elephant got me, and the lead single had me held in a state of good old rock'n'roll ecstasy. Nothing they'd done before or after had the same place in my heart or on my turntable.

I'm bumming about doing gig security. I see Def Leppard at The Doncaster Dome and I'm struck by how much I enjoy it. My indie credentials are blown so I do Download and Creamfields that year and find I'm actually liking it. I'm still in the same job.

2004: You Are The Quarry - Morrissey

How do I get my indie credentials back? Am I doomed to Def Leppard and Timo Mass? God saw me struggle and he sent my saviour back to me. This was what we needed, The Mozfather back with a new album and it's a belter. A mature comparison to the old days, with a stomping attitude and a stomping sound. I see him live in Bradford at St George's Hall with Mr Rol and even though I miss the coach, have to pay for the train and then wait an hour and a half for a coach home I don't care. I've seen Moz playing like he wants to, performing only how he can and he is truly great. I'd seen him several times before including a few years before at the much missed Leeds T&C and this was by far the greatest gig I'd been to in yonks.

I move back home and start working in Leeds as a graphic designer for a small printer. It's quite an archaic set up and is almost Dickensian. I love it, but not the commute.

2005: The Alternative to Love - Brendan Benson


A find by Mr Hirst, Brendan Benson is like Tanya Donnely, one minute calm and sensitive, the next chugging his guitar and making you want to wig out. His role in The Raconteurs is as vital as Jack White's but his solo stuff is genius. Cold Hands Warm Heart is a perfect pop song with great lyrics performed over a simple melody and a strange hook.


I end the year by moving to Birmingham to design adverts for Yellow Pages. I'm still in Birmingham, but the job lasts a few months before downsizing puts most of us out of a job. I get depressed and play XBox a lot to relieve the frustration.

2006: The Life Pursuit - Belle and Sebastian

I was always in two minds about B&S, either art school whiney bollocks or genius pop makers. I found them to be a band who can make even the most ardent of their fans turn away for a bit, but with TLP I finally found an album of theirs I liked all the way through and could stomach putting on repeat. It seemed they had decided that they didn't have to be a cool band anymore and were happy to bash out really good song after really good pop song. And they were all the much better for it.

2007: Sound of Silver - LCD Soundsystem

So we finish off with a suprise, and it was a suprise to me too. The most listened to album of last year at Chez Dave wasn't one I expected to have even bought, let alone listened to loads. Then I looked at what I'd got, and most of it was shit, so the award goes to LCD Soundsystem, a band I'd previously only known though Daft Punk Are Playing At My House, which was an aces single, but could they do it with an album? Well, yes they could, and they could pull it off like a one armed fluffer. Download North American Scum or watch it here and you'll see why. And I was the only one of the guys at work who watched them live and thought "You know what? They're actually rather good..."

In real life I became adjusted to who I was, where I was in life and where I was going to. It din't look too good for a while, but I pulled it back and got on with it.

And so we come to the end of My Life In Music. It's probably only been of any interest to three people in the world, but I've enjoyed the trip through memory lane. And I also wonder what would come about if the rules allowed compilations and best ofs to be in there. It's been great, and normal service will be resumed next week. Hopefully.

But what about 2008? That's for another 7 years time, but at the minute I'm guessing it's the latest Kings Of Leon album.